Patriots Assistant Equipment Manager may have inadvertently caused the National Football League scandal known as "Deflategate".
Storified by Anchor Sewer ·
Mon, Jul 27 2015 13:07:18
January 19, 2014 may be well forgotten in the minds of most people. However, will be a long series of events never forgotten by those associated with a specific organization. For many employees of The National Football League (NFL) and members of the two teams set to face off that evening for The American Football Conference (AFC) Championship game, this date and the events are played out in their minds, rehearsed in conversation and relived as regret. One regret, for sure: Brady throwing the worst interception of his career. The one caught by Q'well Jackson.
The two teams set to meet in the evening on January 19 were The Indianapolis Colts at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts to determine who would represent The AFC in Super Bowl 49 on February 1, 2015.
The AFC Championship game produced a representative to face off against the National Football Conference (NFC) represented by The Seattle Seahawks. However, the two teams met under the most unhospitable circumstances.
Super Bowl Media Day on the 28th of January, 2015 seemed to have an atmosphere of pretense. People knowing there was a scandal preceding The Super Bowl, stemming from The AFC Championship Game; however, discussing the scandal seemed to be a thing of time and place appropriation.
The scandal centering itself in The AFC Championship as if it were a key player, was the question of Did The Patriots use under inflated footballs during play. If so, how?
Tom Brady and The Patriots had not more than 12 hours to enjoy the win over the AFC Indianapolis Colts. By the following morning, Patriots Quarter Back, Tom Brady caught sounding drowsy in an interview he seemed unprepared for, was introduced to the news: The NFL would be conducting an investigation to discover if footballs were used in The AFC Championship game which did not comply with League regulations.
Tom Brady attempted to laugh it off, saying, "I've heard it all...". What ever the case, Tom Brady spent the following days, leading up to The Super Bowl in a press conference, being impersonated in sketches on Saturday Night Live and trying to prepare for a Super Bowl match up in Arizona with The Seattle Seahawks. The Patriots became The 4 Time World Champions on February 1, 2015. But, Tom Brady and The Patriots now began to avoid publick appearances, press conferences and interviews. As, Tom Brady stated in a pre - schedualed speaking engagement at Salem State University, "There is still a process that's going forth right now. And, I'm involved in that process. So, whenever it [statements can be made] happens, it happens. And, I certainly will want to be very comfortable in what ever statements I make".
During The Wells Investigation into the under inflated football scandal, and after The Wells Investigation Report was released on May 6, 2015, Tom Brady has still not made a statement, to date, (7/26/16). The league handed down a suspension of 4 games for Brady. The Patriots were also met with disciplinary action of which Patriots Owner, Robert Kraft reluctantly accepted. Brady is still awaiting an answer on his appeal.
(Generalizing to this point. The agenda this article has to explore is of a very probable and under publicized suggestion for how the footballs became under inflated.)
Much discussion was had for the Ideal Gas Law which basically says temperature can effect expansion or contraction of air inside a closed vessel. The Wells Investigation hired Exponent, to conduct test and attempt to replicate conditions which would explain pressure loss. However, The Exponent theories were challenged by another group, American Enterprise Institute (AEI). We will ignore the findings of both Exponent and AEI, because there is a fundamental piece of data, recorded in The Wells Report, that is not taken into consideration in either Exponents or AEI's calculations, or whatever. We will refer to it as 'The Gloving Technique'.
In The Wells Report, page 53 - 54 (PDF page numbers) , Jastremski tells the investigators, Tom Brady came around noon, the day of the AFC Championship game to inspect footballs and make his selection. However, though Brady was pleased with the footballs Jastremski prepared, he asked Jastremski to use a different process to prepare 1 football. Brady described the process. After a period of time, Brady returned to inspect the one football. He liked the results and asked Jastremski how long it would take to prepare an entire set (12) in the manner Brady described.
John Jestremski, acquired assistance from others (not mentioning who or how many people) to prepare a complete set of 12 game footballs and 12 back up footballs.
The process Brady described to Jastremski was to not use the leather conditioner Jastremksi normally used. But, to don leather palm gloves and rub the football's surface vigoruously to remove the tack.
Jastremski told investigators, he and others rubbed each football for a period of 7 to 15 minutes each. Jastremski told the investigators he removed most of the tack and set the pressures for 12.6psi.
"Around, noon" ("Noon" mentioned 2x in Wells Report), Brady returned to give his "preliminary" approval of the footballs. But, asked Jastremski to continue the process on some of them. At approximately 2:30 p.m., Brady returned to give his final approval. The footballs were bagged and taken to The Official's Locker Room by Jastremski and Jim McNally at around 2:50 pm.
Walt Anderson, Head Referee was accompanied by Gregg Yette in the inspection of the footballs. Anderson began his inspection at 3:45pm. Anderson noted Jim McNally made a comment prior to leaving that was something like, "Remember Walt. Tom likes them at 12.5 psi" and he left the locker room.
Anderson stated "most" of the footballs were at 12.5 psi... All within the psi range approved by the NFL Competition Committee, with the exception of 2. Anderson finished his inspection, added air to the 2 footballs below the minimum range and marked each to identify the footballs as having been inspected. He allowed the marks to dry 15 minutes before the footballs were placed in the correct bags for each team. The inspection process took no longer than 20 minutes.
What is interesting about Walt Anderson's recollection of The Patriots footballs is, Anderson stated he added air to 2 of the footballs and all other footballs were meeting the minimum psi. John Jastremski stated he set the psi for 12.6 on each football. Jim McNally, prior to leaving The Official's Locker Room, told Walt Anderson "Remember Walt, Tom likes them [the football's air pressure] at 12.5 psi". And, for those 2 footballs that were under-inflated, Anderson added air and gauge them to 12.5 psi.
Why were there 2 footballs under inflated, when Jastremski said, after "Gloving" the footballs, he set all of the football's air pressure to 12.6psi. Anderson said he had done nothing to the rest of the footballs because they were at the low end of the permissible range. And, he recalled most of the footballs were at 12.5psi. However, Jastremski said he set all of the footballs at a pressure of 12.6 psi. So, there is a discrepancy in what Anderson is telling us, and what Jastremski stated. Should we worry about 1/10 a psi? Really, there is no reason to. Except, the footballs showed lower psi when Anderson inspected them, than when Jastremski set the footballs at 12.6 psi, which is not what Tom Brady told McNally he wanted. Remember, McNally reminded Anderson, that Tom likes the footballs at 12.5 psi.
So,what happened? Why is there a discrepancy in the psi Jastremski set the footballs at v. the psi Walt Anderson stated he found the (most of) of the footballs at? And, Anderson had to add air to 2 of the footballs because those 2 footballs were under-inflated.
Let's go back to Jastremski's preparation. He vigorously "Gloved" The Patriots footballs for 7 - 15 minutes each. Then, he set the psi to 12.6 psi. If the footballs were "gloved" vigorously for that amount of time, would there be thermal expansion? Would the temperature of the football and the air inside the football increase? Sure.
Jastremski said, after gloving the footballs, he then "set" the air pressure to 12.6 psi for each football, Brady gave instructions to continue gloving some of them. Then Brady came back, made his final selection. The footballs were bagged and taken to Anderson, within 55 minutes. The inspection of all of the footballs between the two teams took, at most, 20 minutes.
When Jastremski set the psi to 12.6psi, did he let air out of the footballs? Did Jastremski add air to the footballs? We do not know. We only know, the gloving process causes the football's temperature to rise. The air inside is now under thermal expansion. And, Jastremski says, he "set" the air pressure at 12.6 psi. When the footballs were inspected by Walt Anderson, most were at 12.5 psi. And, 2 were below. This shows the footballs were under thermal expansion and were beginnging to acclimate by the time Walt Anderson inspected them.
Walt Anderson set the two under-inflated footballs to 12.5psi. He did nothing to the others because they were at the lower end of the approved range. ( Anderson said, most were at 12.5 psi.) So, Anderson approved footballs that were under inflated. However, he had no way of knowing this, because thermal expansion created by warming with the friction from 'gloving' the footballs was presenting a false psi. !@!
Why did the people at Exponent and AEI not pick up on this? Bill Belichick stated he thought this was the case, in one of the interviews he gave. No one but Bill Belichick considered this? What are the people at Exponent being paid for. So AEI could give their results? (Which really does not mean anything in light of what Bill and myself explaine.)
This does not exonerate Brady. It may take some heat off of Jastremski. He said he had never been asked to do this before. When Brady was asked about the process, Brady said he asked Jastremski to 'Glove" the footballs because it would rain that day. So, he told him to not use the leather conditioner Jastremski normally usesed. What, Brady? It never rained on a game day before The AFC Championship game?
Brady, came back and inspected the footballs. He then had Jastremski continue to work on some of them.
(Why continue to work on some of them? Was continuing to work on some, to be sure the footballs did not acclimate after Jastremski set the heated football's air pressure to 12.6psi?)
We know. We can now say we know with some certainty, the football's air pressures were manipulated to appear at the minimum psi. And, because 2 of the footballs had to have air added, we can safely hypothesize these two footballs were acclimating to their true air pressure. And, let's not forget that most of them were at 12.5 psi when Anderson checked them. Those too were probably acclimating.
So, check this out. The footballs come in at half time. They had not had time to acclimate from outside temperature. (which was really not that bad. 52 degrees and raining). Anderson begins with The Patriots footballs, checking and documenting (DOCUMENTING) the air pressure found in each football. Some of the footballs were nearly 2 psi under the minimum. Nearly 10.5 psi. One of the footballs was at 10.5 psi. according to Anderson's cataloging.. However, when The Colts footballs were checked. They were not 13 psi as they started out. but, they had not dropped more than 1/2 a psi. Why the severe pressure differences between the Patriots footballs and the 4 footballs the Colts had checked?